On November 3, Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, speaking...

On November 3, Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, speaking at the Third Committee of the General Assembly (human rights) under item 116a (death penalty), said it is certainly a prerogative of each country to decide on whether to maintain the death penalty or to abolish it. "By expressing here our firm belief on the necessity to abolish it and to restrict progressively the number of offenses for which it is imposed, we do not believe ourselves to be imposing our way of thinking on others," he said. In 1972, Colombia incorporated into national legislation the provisions of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights which expressly prohibits capital punishment and, in 1996, it did likewise with respect to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. "These have been repeated acts of affirmation of a principle we deem of high moral value, that is, the respect for human life, and even though, throughout the long years of internal conflict, several people have raised their voices to speak for the restoration of the death penalty against grave offenses, the great majority of Colombians continue to hold the view that it should remain abolished," Ambassador Valdivieso concluded.